


If

by onlythegeste (beatlesaddict)



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Because Bix and Morse spent half the episode mutually pining over one another, Glacially Slow Burn, M/M, Ride AU: Bix lives, and I felt the need to expand on that, poetry references, they will work out they like each other eventually I promise, various small crossovers and cameo appearances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22176541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatlesaddict/pseuds/onlythegeste
Summary: Joss Bixby is not dead, and Endeavour Morse is extraordinarily bad at minding his own business.
Relationships: Anthony Donn & Endeavour Morse, Joss Bixby/Endeavour Morse, Kay Belborough/Joss Bixby (past)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 53





	1. Ride - Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AstridContraMundum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/gifts).



> For the wonderful AstridContraMundum, whose works reminded me that Bix is my favourite guest character in Endeavour so far.

There was a cold apathy there in Conrad’s eyes. He shrank from it, stumbled blindly backwards in horrified realisation. His right foot met nothing but air. Then –

* * *

A shot cut through the stillness of the night; sent Morse scrambling out of the dacha and away through the trees, back towards the lake. The world seemed to condense itself into little more than the wild thumping of his heart and his footfalls. He took the turning towards the little jetty too fast, stumbling a few steps before righting himself and redoubling his pace. It couldn’t have been, surely?

Then the jetty was ahead of him. Empty. Silent.

“Bix?” The name fell from his lips unbidden. “Bixby?!”

There was something in the water. Someone.

“Bixby?”

The chill of the water shocked him, and he was fleetingly struck with the thought that he ought to have taken his shoes off. Then he had hold of a shoulder, and he pulled, and half of Bix’s face was all-over blood, and a startled yelp escaped him.

He had to get him out of the water. Crime scene preservation be damned, it wouldn’t be right to just leave him there. Not Bix.

It took a fair amount of scrabbling to get anything like a proper hold, and it was an awkward, undignified process, getting them both onto dry land. Morse almost lost his grip dragging Bix over the bank; had to fumble to catch him. His forearm jarred painfully against Bix’s ribs. There was a pathetic, spluttering cough. Morse dropped Bix rather abruptly on the grass and almost toppled back into the lake. Another weak cough; then the thready rasp of a shallow breath. Another.

Suddenly, the haze was gone from Morse’s brain, and the world was sharp and clear and purposeful. Bix was breathing. Morse had to see to it he stayed that way.

The nearest phone would be at Bix’s place, but leaving –

The low snarl of a large engine. Morse stiffened. Then a car with one smashed headlight rounded the bend, and stopped, and Anthony was staring at him in unmitigated horror.

“Oh, God,” said Anthony.

“He needs a hospital. Don’t just sit there, help me.”

“Oh, God,” Anthony repeated, near-flinging himself out of the car to help gather Bix up into the back seat. “What the bloody hell happened?”

“I don’t know.” Morse shuffled into the seat so that Bix’s head was in his lap, pulled off his own sodden shirt and pressed it to the bloody mess that was the left side of Bix’s face with a sympathetic wince. “Just drive.”

* * *

After almost half an hour of perching silently on an uncomfortable chair in a tiny, otherwise-unoccupied waiting room in Cowley General Hospital, Tony felt the need to say something. Anything. What he came out with was:

“Are you all right, Morse?”

Wide, blue eyes stared disbelievingly at Anthony Donn, asker of foolish questions. Somehow, it wasn’t so intimidating paired with wet hair and a bare chest half-covered by Tony’s own jacket as it had been when they were up at Lonsdale together. Morse back then had been cool, detached, and so firmly convinced that he was right. Always. It was unsettling that he could look so small now.

“Look, I know you’re not the one who’s hurt, but you look… I mean, it can’t have been pleasant, finding –”

“No. It wasn’t.”

That had to be the most horrifying understatement Tony had ever heard: he himself barely knew Joss Bixby, and it had been awful to think – however briefly – that the man might be… And Morse, Bixby’s friend, had been alone; had found him in the water; had touched him, not knowing that he wasn’t _gone_. A prickling little shiver snaked its way down Tony’s spine at the thought. Morse had used to faint at the sight of blood.

Finding himself at a loss for anything helpful to say, he put his hand on Morse’s shoulder and gave it an awkward squeeze. It earned him a tight, fragile attempt at a smile. He could almost pretend it was only Morse he was trying to reassure.

The silence was back, and in the absence of any hope at conversation, Tony resorted to counting the tiles on the floor. There was something bleak about their greyness; the way they had gone dull from years of scrubbing. Christ, but he hated hospitals. Number seventeen had a crack across the corner. Morse was shivering again. Number twenty-four was unusually stripy compared with its fellows. Perhaps Morse would like a cup of tea. Perhaps Tony should ask. Number thirty was entirely unexceptional. There was a brisk rap on the open door. Tony looked up.

A whip-thin, dark-haired man in a sharp suit stood in the doorway: one of the policemen who’d come to ask about the girl found in the woods a few days back. Jeannie something. Hurst? Hearn? Yes. Jeannie Hearn.

“Morse. Mr. Donn,” said the policeman, by way of greeting, “Detective Sergeant Jakes, City Police – I’d like to talk to you about Mr. Bixby.”

“Oh,” said Tony, “Yes, of course.”

Morse stared blankly at Jakes as though not quite comprehending his presence. Jakes aimed a consolatory half-smile at him and proffered a duffel bag.

“Heard you’d ended up in the drink, Morse, so I brought you some dry things. Your Nurse Hicks says there’s a patients’ bathroom just along the corridor – take a hot shower and get yourself changed. Someone’ll be along with tea in ten minutes or so.”

Standing, Morse took the bag with a vague murmur of thanks and left.

Jakes frowned after him for a moment; then he turned his attention back to Tony.

“In your own time, Mr. Donn,” he began gently, taking a seat opposite and pulling a notebook and pencil from his pocket, “I’d like you to talk me through the events of this evening. All right?”

“Yes, of course,” said Tony, wringing his hands together absently. “Um, I left Bixby’s party early – before it finished, that is – a little after four. Bruce was being bloody, and it rather put me out of sorts.”

“Bruce being your cousin, Lord Belborough?” Jakes cut in, looking up from his notebook.

“Second cousin, yes. He had a row with Bixby, you see. Well, perhaps ‘row’ isn’t the right word: Bruce was drunk, he’d lost to Bixby at cards, and he was angry about it. I went to find Morse – I thought perhaps he could help me persuade Bruce to go home. When we got back, Bixby seemed upset about something Bruce had said – I don’t know what – and he more or less accused Bruce of being a fascist. Then Bruce clocked him in the mouth.” Tony paused, considering. “Actually, I was a bit surprised he didn’t manage to start a fight.”

“Bixby seemed likely to retaliate, then?” Jakes asked.

“Bixby? He’s not really the brawling type, I don’t think, though I suppose I don’t know him terribly well. Morse, though? He and Bruce have been known to square up quite seriously, and for a moment I thought...” Tony shrugged – it was fairly self-evident, really.

“So, what did happen?”

“Oh, Bruce took Kay and headed for the car. Morse went back to see Bixby was all right. I ought to have stuck around to apologise for Bruce’s lack of manners, but I didn’t quite trust him not to just take the car without me, and he’s a reckless enough driver sober – never mind when he’s had a skinful – so I didn’t hang about.”

If the small smirk playing at the corner of his lips was anything to go on, Jakes was mildly amused by the sentiment, or at least the way he’d expressed it.

“We must have got back to the Hall at about half past – I wasn’t in any particular hurry. Anyway, Bruce and Kay went straight upstairs, but I didn’t fancy trying to sleep, so I sat up for a while in the library. I think I must have read the same page about eight times before I gave up.

“I thought I’d have a cup of cocoa, try to wind down a bit, and I was standing there in the kitchen, looking for a milk saucepan, when it occurred to me that I probably ought to have checked with Pagan – er, Morse, that is – that he wasn’t relying on me for a lift back to the dacha. Not that he couldn’t have walked, I suppose, but I’d driven him over to Bixby’s for the party, too, and it really was frightfully careless of me to just swan off without a word. So I went out to the car and headed back over.”

“What time would that have been, do you think?”

“Twenty to six? Maybe a little later? I’m sorry, Sergeant, I didn’t think to check the clock.” Tony grimaced, mentally berating himself for not paying more attention.

Jakes favoured him with an encouraging nod.

“I was very nearly there when I heard a shot. I almost thought it might have been a firework for a second – Bixby often has fireworks at his parties – but there was only the one, and it was a way off from the house. Down by the lake. And, well, there’s only Bixby’s little landing stage down there; so I turned the car around and went to see what was going on. Um… Pagan was there, it was him I saw first – he was hunched over on the shore, looking like a drowned rat – so I stopped the car, and then I saw Bixby. I’m, uh, I’m afraid I rather froze up. There was an awful lot of blood. He was just sort of lying there, covered in the stuff. I thought… Well, I suppose I thought he must be dead, only Pagan was shouting at me about hospitals, which made it pretty clear he couldn’t be, and between us we managed to get him into my car and...” Tony trailed off with an awkward shrug and a feeble little smile, “Well, here we are.”

It had occurred to him, as he was talking, that he didn’t really remember the drive to the Radcliffe. Perhaps it was shock. Bixby had been unconscious and bleeding in the back seat, poor sod, and the whole world had felt vaguely unreal, as if he was viewing it through a fogged-up window. He shook the thought away and returned his attention to Jakes.

“Is there anything else I can tell you, Sergeant?”

“No, I think that’s all for now, though if you should remember anything at a later – Wotcher, Morse.”

Freshly washed and clad in an only marginally ill-fitting ensemble of cords and jumper – presumably Jakes’ – Morse looked an awful lot more like himself than he had before he left. Still a little damp; still a little haunted; but undeniably more composed.

“Thanks,” he said quietly, “for the clothes. Any word on Bix?”

“Not yet,” Jakes replied, “but you know what they say.”

“No news is good news.” Morse sighed. He sat down in the chair beside Tony’s with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, ran his fingers through his hair, then looked up. “Doesn’t make it any easier, does it?”

“’Fraid not.” Jakes was blunter with Morse than he had been with Tony, but something about the way that bluntness made the corner of Morse’s mouth twitch spoke of it being a familiar state of affairs between the two of them. Friends, then, as well as colleagues? Or just used to working closely together? Morse was so damned cagey about his time with the police that Tony had very little real idea.

“I suppose you’ll want a statement.”

“I can make do with a rough sequence of events for the moment, if it’s easier.”

“Can Anthony stay?”

There was a moment’s quiet as Jakes cast an assessing gaze over Tony, who was silently stunned at the idea Morse actually wanted him around – presumably as some kind of moral support.

“Don’t see why not. I’ve heard his version of events already.”

“Right.” Morse drew in a deep, shaky breath. “Where would you like me to start?”

“Before Mr. Donn left, ideally. There was a disagreement between Bixby and Lord Belborough?”

Morse nodded, chewing his lip thoughtfully.

“Yes,” he said, at length, “I’d been in the garden with Kay – Lady Belborough, that is. Anthony came looking for us, so we went in. There was Bruce, glaring daggers at Bix by one of the card tables. There was a loss involved. Seventy-five thousand, I think Bix said. Small change to Bruce, but I suppose it was the principle of the thing he objected to: Bix made him look small. Bruce got it into his head to call Bixby a cheat; Bix told him he’d sooner be a fraud than a Blackshirts bastard. Bruce hit him for that. I told Bruce to go easy and got a lecture on who my real friends are for my troubles. From _Bruce_ , of all people.”

An expression of annoyed disbelief crossed Morse’s face at the idea of the thing.

“I think Bix was more surprised than hurt – a split lip, nothing serious – but he didn’t feel like going back to the tables, and some of the guests were beginning to head home, so we went to his study for a drink; talked a bit.”

“About anything in particular?”

“Bix is in love with Kay. We discussed that, for a while. And I told him I’m a policeman.”

“You mean he didn’t know before?” interjected Tony, shocked.

“It didn’t seem important,” said Morse, as though that was any kind of explanation, “but it came up in conversation and there didn’t seem much point in hiding it, either. We walked down to the lake together. It was a nice night for it. Then Bix invited me to watch his dry-run in the hydroplane in the morning, of all things. I told him I’d seen enough death.”

An uncomfortable hush descended. Morse looked wretched, and Tony didn’t know what on Earth to say to make it better. It was all just a rather awful mess.

“You all right, Morse?” asked Jakes, low and quiet and careful.

“I’ll live,” Morse replied. “I wished him luck; headed back to the dacha. There was a car – I saw its headlamps through the trees. That was around… half five. The shot came about twenty minutes later.

“He was face down in the water. I, uh, I went in after him, and there was just… blood…” Morse trailed off, suddenly very pale and glassy-eyed.

Jakes got up to crouch in front of him, gripping him firmly by the shoulders.

“Easy, Morse,” he said, with a calmness Tony envied, “Breathe. That’s it.”

“I’m all right,” Morse snapped, swatting the sergeant away irritably as some of his colour returned.

“Long as you’re sure,” Jakes allowed. It earned him a glower, and he held his hands up in mock surrender, returning to his seat. “You fished him out, then?”

“Yes. Then Anthony arrived in the car, and I think you know the rest.”

“Enough to write an initial report, anyroads.”

Jakes closed his notebook, then paused halfway through tucking it into his breast pocket. He pulled it back out and flipped it open again.

“He ever mention any enemies?”

“Not to me,” said Morse, “Not in so many words. He offered to employ me as his cornerman. To keep him out of trouble, he said, though he didn’t specify beyond that. And somebody vandalised his car the other day: left him some kind of, I dunno, a warning. It was old testament stuff - ‘Be sure your sin will find you out’.”

“Mr. Donn?” asked Jakes.

“I’ve really no idea, sorry,” Tony offered with an apologetic smile.

“Any chance he might’ve been trying to top himself?”

Tony blanched, rather horrified by the idea, and found himself unequal to giving any kind of answer.

“Oh, I wouldn’t have said so,” said Morse firmly, almost dismissive. It was reassuring, in a way, that confidence – it said Tony didn’t have to think about the concept any further.

Jakes scowled down at his notebook, then hastily shoved it into his pocket with a sigh.

“I suppose we’ll just have to wait until we can ask Bixby, then. Look, Morse, do you have anywhere to stay besides that – er – dacha?”

“I don’t know,” said Morse tiredly, “Bright kept up my rent whilst I was –” he paused; gave an awkward little half-shrug “– but I haven’t been back since.”

Jakes frowned.

“I’ll make up the sofa for you at my place, once there’s word one way or the other – I don’t like the idea of you stopping somewhere without a proper lock just now”

Tony expected Morse to bridle at the protectiveness implicit in that comment, but no such reaction was forthcoming. Instead, Morse huffed a tired little half-laugh.

“Thanks.”

Well. Pagan Morse accepting people’s concern with some degree of grace – wonders never ceased.

There was a soft knock on the door, and a pretty young black woman in nurse’s uniform entered with a tea-trolley. She aimed a soft smile at Morse, who ducked his head before managing to smile back.

“Nurse Hicks,” Jakes greeted.

“Sergeant,” she returned, “I thought I’d bring the tea myself, given the ward’s quiet.” She poured four cups, sweet and milky, with a practiced hand. “I asked after the man you brought in, Morse. He’s still in surgery – I’m afraid that’s as much as I know.”

Morse nodded, staring fixedly into his teacup.

* * *

It was gone nine o’clock. Morse and his friend – Anthony Donn, seemingly a decent sort of bloke, if uncomfortably posh – had both managed to fall asleep somehow. Donn, at least, had had the sense to lie down across a row of chairs. Morse was more-or-less upright in his seat, head leant awkwardly against the wall. If the poor bugger hadn’t looked so much like he needed the kip, Peter would have woken him out of concern for the state of his neck. As it was, he let the pair of them be: time enough to wake them later, when there was news one way or the other about Bixby. He might stand half a chance of persuading Morse to go home, then.

Peter was shaken from his reverie by the appearance of a sharp-faced, blond man of middle years. A doctor, judging by the get-up.

“Sergeant Jakes?” the man asked, as Peter got stiffly to his feet.

“Yes.”

“I’m Doctor Minton.”

They shook hands politely, and Minton ushered Peter out into the empty corridor to avoid disturbing the two sleepers.

* * *

Someone was shaking Morse gently by the shoulder, and he was tempted to tell them to bugger off, except that a nagging voice at the back of his head said that it might be something important. He opened his eyes. Jakes. Suddenly, he was very much awake.

“Bix?” he asked.

“He looks a bit of a mess,” said Jakes, bluntly, “and he’s not conscious yet, but he’s on a side ward if you want to see him for yourself.”

Morse stared at him dumbly for a moment, not quite processing the information he was being given, then he nodded slowly to himself.

“I think I’d like that.” It was quiet, hesitant, but Jakes seemed willing to take it at face value.

“All right. This way, then.”

They fell into step with each other in the corridor, and it was like old times but somehow not. Perhaps it was that Jakes didn’t seem so untouchable since Blenheim Vale. Not that they’d really seen each other, but…

“The doctors reckon his chances are pretty good,” Jakes said, without looking at him, “but they’re keeping a close eye, given he breathed in half a lake – risk of pneumonia and that.”

Morse nodded a sharp affirmative, and Jakes must have caught the movement out of the corner of his eye because he didn’t say anything else until they were within sight of a side ward with a uniformed constable Morse didn’t recognise well enough to put a name to standing guard on the door.

“Looks like you were right – they don’t think there’s much chance he did it to himself, way the wounds are. So you know,” he said lowly, ushering Morse into the ward before him.

The world was stripped away to just Bix, wan and delicate and corpse-like, lying inert against the starched sheets of the lone bed; clad in hospital pyjamas with his face half-hidden by neat, white bandages and a nasal cannula. Morse’s feet took him to the bedside unbidden, and his fingers sought Bix’s hand. It was warm and solid and _real_ , and the relief of it brought stinging tears to Morse’s eyes. He blinked them away ruthlessly, unwilling to cry if he could help it. Bix was alive, and there was nothing to cry over.

“Visiting hours are two ‘til four,” said Jakes softly, and the world bled back into focus. “Time enough for you to get a couple of hours’ kip. Come on, I’ll run you home.”

“Thanks,” Morse replied, reluctantly surrendering his fingertip contact with Bix.

He followed Jakes back to the little waiting room in a daze, absently gathering the duffel containing his wet clothes and borrowed jacket as Jakes shook Anthony awake and encouraged him to head home.

“Morse?” Jakes asked. From the tone, it probably wasn’t the first time.

“Hm?” said Morse.

“Christ,” Jakes grumbled, “you’re dead on your feet, aren’t you.”

Morse offered up an awkward one-shouldered shrug, because it wasn’t as though he could honestly deny it.

“Come on, then. No sense you falling asleep here again.”

The walk to the Jag was a short one, and if Jakes stayed studiously within arm’s reach until Morse was safely ensconced in the passenger seat, neither of them was about to bring attention to the fact.

Jakes turned the key in the ignition, and the answering bass rumble of the short-stroke straight six felt more like home than anything had these last few months. Morse drifted away on the wings of the engine’s irresistable lullaby.

* * *

It was a delicate balancing act, finding a spare hand to unlock the door without losing his grip on Morse, who was no more than half awake and leaning rather heavily on him to stay upright. With hindsight, perhaps Peter should have left him in the car until he’d actually got the door open, but Morse had seemed more-or-less capable of handling himself until he’d actually stood up and nearly fallen flat on his face. It had seemed less complicated to just head for the flat, at that point, than to try and get Morse back into the car again.

That didn’t stop Peter feeling a right idiot for not expecting it – he _knew_ how it could hit people, when the adrenaline wore off.

Once they were inside, it was a simple enough task to haul Morse over to the sofa. He stayed upright until Peter had fetched him a pillow, but was asleep practically before he finished lying down, and didn’t so much as stir as Peter rid him of his footwear and draped a slightly tatty spare blanket over him.

Peter busied himself with stuffing Morse’s still-damp shoes with newspaper, feeling somewhat like an intruder in his own flat, then turned to leave.

“Well,” he said quietly from the doorway, tucking Morse’s shoes tidily away by the mat, “I’d best be off – Inspector Thursday’ll be expecting me.”

Silly, Peter thought, to talk to someone who was evidently dead to the world, but it would feel odd to leave without some kind of goodbye. He eased the door shut behind him, more aware than usual of the loud click of the latch sliding home.

* * *

“Is it true?”

For a moment, Tony just stood there dumbly, unsure quite how to deal with being interrogated in his bedroom doorway in a dressing gown.

“Um,” he managed, eventually, “Why don’t you come in, Kay?”

“Is it true?” Kay repeated, more urgently, as soon as Tony had shut the door.

“Is what true?”

“Is he… Is he dead?” She looked close to tears.

“Is who dead? What are you talking about? Bixby?”

Kay’s stricken expression confirmed it.

“No,” Tony told her gently, though not as lightly as he would have liked, “No, Kay, Bixby’s not dead.”

“Oh,” Kay breathed.

There was something terribly vulnerable in her bearing, and it didn’t require conscious thought for Tony to fold her gently into his arms and rest his chin on top of her head. She was crying – he could feel the hitch in her breathing.

“Whoever told you such a thing?” he asked.

“Nobody,” came the sniffled reply.

“Then why would you think –?”

“There are policemen everywhere, down by the lake. One of them – the Inspector, you remember, from that awful business about the girl the other day – he wanted to speak to Bruce about Bixby. I didn’t hear much, but he said he’d been shot.”

“Ah,” said Tony, “I see.”

Kay stepped back from his embrace and fixed him with a frightened, accusatory glare.

“Don’t look at me like that, Kay, I haven’t done anything.” He paused, considering how best to word it. “He _was_ shot, but not fatally. Last night – this morning, really, I suppose – down by the lake. That’ll be why the police are there. Morse fished him out; I drove him to Cowley General. It wasn’t pretty, but the doctors say he should be fine.”

Slowly, the tension melted away and Kay’s posture softened. She offered Tony a slightly bashful smile.

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

“Whatever for?”

“Waking you; barging my way into your room; practically accusing you of…” She gave a self-deprecating little chuckle. “Well, take your pick.”

“Already forgotten, Kay. Come on, I’ll make us both a cup of tea, and once I’m dressed we can see about visiting him, if you like.”

It was as though a shutter went down on Kay’s face.

“No, Tony. I’m afraid I really am rather busy.”

She dropped a perfunctory kiss on his cheek and left without another word, leaving Tony more confused than he could recall feeling in years. He glanced across at his alarm clock. Ten to two. Morse had most likely already left for Cowley General, but he had a number from Sergeant Jakes for Cowley Road CID. God knew, _something_ odd was going on, and much as Tony hated to think ill of Bruce, he didn’t like the fact that Kay had been so certain that Bixby had been killed: it set his teeth on edge.

* * *

Now that the search of the area immediately surrounding Lake Silence was over, it was oddly quiet. The various uniformed constables had gone back to the station, and it was just Peter, standing alone by the landing stage with a cigarette between his lips, waiting to see if the frogmen dredged anything important up.

Thursday should be back soon – it couldn’t take all that much longer to interview Belborough and his wife.

He winced as the cigarette burned a little too close to his fingers; dropped it and ground it absently beneath his heel.

A shout went up from the lake. He looked up. One of the frogmen had surfaced holding a shotgun. Some bloody hope of getting any decent fingerprints off it after it had been in the drink for hours, but it was progress all the same.

* * *

Morse paused in the doorway of the side ward. He hadn’t been expecting company.

“Doctor DeBryn,” he offered, by way of greeting.

“Hello, Morse. I thought I might see you here.”

Morse gave an awkward little shrug, and entered the room fully, closing the door behind him.

“Was there something you wanted, Doctor?”

“He’s been very lucky, considering,” said Debryn, surveying Bix’s still form with a beetled brow. “There’ll be a degree of scarring, of course, and from the surgeon’s notes I doubt he’ll ever see out of that eye again, but… It was a poor shot, Morse. Save for that, he wouldn’t have had a face left to identify his body by.”

For a moment, Morse was back in the water, Bix a dead weight in his arms and blood everywhere – the air heavy with the smell of it. Then DeBryn cleared his throat, quietly, and there was nothing but the slightly acrid tang of disinfectant.

Morse shook his head to clear it.

“His medical records go back about four years,” said DeBryn, “I can’t find anything earlier.” He met Morse’s gaze directly. “It’s not _suspicious_ , exactly – paperwork is easy enough to misplace, particularly when people move around a lot – but it’s unusual enough that I felt you ought to know.”

“I’ll get on to the register office,” Morse promised. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Not at all.” DeBryn turned to leave; then looked back from the doorway with that wryly fond half-smile he often seemed to direct at Morse. “It’s good to have you back, Constable.”

Then he was gone, and Morse was alone with Bix.

He was a better colour than he had been that morning, and looked slightly less corpse-like for it.

Morse sat cautiously on the chair by the bedside, suddenly slightly awkward.

“Hello, Bix,” he said. “Sorry, I’m no good at this. I should have brought a book – I could have read to you.”

Although… He hadn’t a book, but Bix liked poetry well enough to quote Kipling at him in the small hours of the morning when they’d both drunk more than they should. Morse didn’t need a book for poetry, though he wasn’t altogether sure what Bix would make of Housman.

“When I was one-and-twenty,” he began, softly, a little uncertain, “I heard a wise man say –”

* * *

“All right, Strange, we’ll look into it. Out.”

Peter hung the radio handset back on its hook just as Inspector Thursday opened the passenger door.

“Anything important, Sergeant?”

“Perhaps, Sir,” said Peter cautiously. “Donn called the station – apparently Lady Belborough went to see him earlier, and she seemed pretty convinced Bixby had been killed. Could be nothing, of course, but...” He trailed off with a shrug.

“No smoke without fire, eh, Jakes?”

“Something like that, Sir.”

“All right. We’ll see about speaking to Donn again tomorrow morning – might as well get the whole story first-hand before we try chasing Lady Belborough up on it.”

Peter nodded, satisfied with the plan, and reached for the ignition.

* * *

There was a voice – a soft, familiar voice that seemed to be reciting something. If he tried, it was possible to make out words:

“With weeping and with laughter

Still is the story told,

How well Horatius kept the bridge –”

“– In the brave days of old.” The words came to Joss’s lips unbidden, and he found as he spoke them that his throat was dry enough to render them a barely-intelligible, rasping whisper.

There was a sharp intake of breath.

“Bix?” asked the voice.

Why couldn’t he place it?

It took more effort than he had expected to raise his eyelids, and only the right one seemed to be working. Still, one eye was enough to see the well-known figure perched anxiously on a chair at his bedside.

Morse.

Of course it was. Good old Morse, always worrying about him.

“Hello, Old Man,” croaked Joss, with his best attempt at a smile, “Did I crash the hydroplane?”

Morse gave a strange little strangled half-laugh, and smiled back at him.

“No, the hydroplane’s fine. I should… I should fetch a doctor. I won’t be long.”

Then Morse was out of the door and Joss was alone. He raised a cautious hand – the one not hampered by a drip – to his left eye; winced at the flare of pain when his fingertips brushed the bandage over it. Apparently, he himself had not got out of whatever happened as undamaged as his hydroplane.

Abruptly, he wished Morse hadn’t left.

* * *

Morse gave the constable on the door of the side ward a nod; then knocked twice, waiting for an invitation before entering.

Bix looked an awful lot better propped mostly-upright against his pillows than he had earlier, and the unbandaged part of his face lit up when he saw Morse.

“Hello, old man,” Bix said, lightly, “I was beginning to think you’d got lost.”

“I had to phone the station – let them know you were awake.” Morse shuffled the chair a little closer to Bix’s bed and sat down, shrugging out of his jacket. “I expect someone’ll be over to ask you for your statement later.”

“Not you, then?” Bix sounded almost disappointed.

“I’m not officially back at work,” Morse admitted, “and even if I was, I’m not sure I’d be allowed to work the case. Personal involvement, you see.”

“Ah. The hazards of making friends, eh?”

“Something like that,” said Morse, feeling the corners of his lips twitch in a reluctant smile. “I didn’t say before – I’m glad you’re, well, not ‘all right’ exactly, but...”

“Not dead?” suggested Bix, wryly.

“Yes. You had me worried, for a while.”

“Sorry,” said Bix. He seemed abashed and sincere, and Morse found it vaguely amusing that the man felt the need to apologise.

“You know, Bix, you really are nothing like the rest of them.”

Bix stared at him, wide-eyed; evidently struggling to judge just what he meant.

“Bruce and the others, they’re not… I don’t mean they’re bad people, exactly, Bix, but you have to admit they can be a bit…” Morse trailed off.

“You’re a straight bat, old man,” said Bix warmly. He was smiling again – fond and bright and almost slightly shy – and it was ever so tempting to bask in that radiance. Morse ducked his head, cheeks warm.

Companionable silence reigned for a while, neither man quite willing to break the stillness of the moment. The clock above the doorway ticked ever closer to four.

A nurse – not Monica, but Morse thought she looked vaguely familiar, so perhaps a friend of hers – poked her head around the door at twenty minutes to the hour, to let them know that a policeman was on his way to speak to Mister Bixby, and it would be best if Morse were ready to leave when he arrived.

There was no point arguing about it.

“Is there anything you’d like me to bring you?” Morse asked, standing up and gathering his jacket, “Tomorrow, that is? I could stop by the house on my way.”

“Really, you needn’t go to any trouble on my account.”

“It’s no trouble. Call it an opportunity to muscle in on the case, if it makes you feel better.”

Bix grinned lopsidedly at that, looking for all the world like a naughty schoolboy.

“Well, in that case, there’s a novel on my bedside table that I wouldn’t mind finishing.”

“And you don’t mind if I do a bit of snooping whilst I’m there?”

“I haven’t anything to hide from you, though I’ll ask you not to judge me on my taste in dirty magazines.”

Morse laughed at that, and at the mischievous smirk Bix paired it with.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Goodbye, old man.”

Morse slipped out into the corridor, purpose in his step and a smile playing at the corner of his lips. He felt sufficiently cheerful to exchange a few words with the constable standing watch – Fisher, apparently – who seemed pleasantly surprised by his friendliness.

It was something of a shock, turning the corner and almost walking into Inspector Thursday.

Immediately, he felt ridiculous for his surprise – of course it would be Thursday who came to speak to Bix. The fact that Thursday seemed almost equally taken aback was cold comfort.

“Morse,” Thursday managed, at length.

“Sir.”

“You’ve been visiting Bixby, then?”

It was an olive branch. Somehow, Morse couldn’t quite work out how to take it.

“Yes, Sir,” he said, awkwardly, “He’s awake, if you wanted to talk to him. I won’t keep you.”

He didn’t give Thursday the opportunity to answer; merely turned on his heel and strode away as fast as he could manage without breaking into a run. If he was shaking slightly when he eventually came to a stop, there was no-one around to comment on it.

* * *

Bixby seemed smaller, somehow, without the expensive suit and grand surroundings of their last meeting. Nevertheless, he greeted Fred with that same reserved-yet-welcoming smile.

“Hello, Inspector.”

“Mister Bixby.”

“Bix, please,” said Bixby, easily, “Or Joss, if you prefer. Any friend of Morse’s…”

Perhaps, Fred reflected, it wasn’t such a great mystery how Morse had fallen in with Bixby, after all. The man had social grace enough for both of them.

“Joss, then,” he allowed. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about what happened last night, if you feel well enough.”

“Certainly, Inspector. Fire away.”

Bixby was, in many ways, rather a pleasant interviewee – he gave clear, concise answers where he could; admitted outright when he wasn’t sure; and didn’t get ruffled when asked to go back over a point to clarify something. And his version of events lined up pretty well with what Fred remembered of Morse and Donn’s statements, which suggested his answers were honest.

“About what time did you go down to the landing stage with Morse?”

“I didn’t look at the clock, I’m afraid. I remember hearing it strike five when we were in my office; so perhaps quarter past? About then, anyhow.”

“Do you mind my asking what you talked about?”

“My plans for Redtail, mostly,” said Bixby, with an oddly wistful look, “My hydroplane. Morse didn’t much approve.”

“Oh?”

“He worries about me, I think. I almost wish he wouldn’t, but… Well, it’s nice, I suppose. To know that someone cares.”

The hollowness behind Bixby’s eyes was so much reminiscent of Morse that Fred had to look away for a moment.

“That was when Morse left, was it?”

“Yes. I remember feeling rather ghastly for upsetting him, but he seems to have forgiven me.”

“And after that?”

“I stood there watching the lake for a while. Then Kathy was there – Kay Belborough, that is. She asked me to forget about her.” Bixby trailed off, worrying at his lip with his front teeth.

“Had you been having an affair with her?” Fred hardly liked to ask, but it seemed relevant to the investigation.

“A long time ago,” said Bixby, quietly, “In another life.”

“Before she met her husband, then?”

Bixby nodded.

“I see. And you’d never quite got over her, is that it?”

Bixby looked up at that, and gave Fred the most pitiful excuse for a smile he’d ever seen.

“I asked her to marry me,” he said, “when I was nineteen. I didn’t have a ring to offer her, at the time, but she said yes anyway. We were happy. And then it all went to hell.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, Inspector, but you needn’t be. It was a long time ago, and there was nothing either of us could’ve done differently.”

An awkward silence hung between them for a long moment.

“Do you remember around what time Lady Belborough left?”

“I...” Bixby frowned, worrying at the split in his lower lip with his teeth. “I don’t know. It’s all…fuzzy. I ought to remember, but...”

“Head injuries do that, sometimes. Nothing to beat yourself up over.”

Bixby nodded, acquiescent, though he didn’t look altogether convinced.

“Look, the nurses’ll be in to chase me out if I stick around too much longer. Thank you for your help, Mister Bixby, and if you should happen to remember anything pertinent, you just call me, alright?” He placed his card on the bedside table. “Or tell Morse, if you prefer.”

Bixby looked about to say something, but didn’t.

“I’ll be on my way then. You get some rest.”

Bixby’s quiet “Goodbye, Inspector,” followed him through the door.

* * *

“Look, are you absolutely sure we should be doing this?” Tony asked, half-afraid to raise his voice above a whisper, though there was nobody around to overhear.

Morse gave him a look.

“I know, I know, he asked you to fetch his book, but that’s not quite the same thing as allowing you to dig around in his things, is it?”

“I did ask, you know,” said Morse, staring intently at a photograph of Kay hanging opposite Bixby’s bed. It was hanging slightly askew, but Tony couldn’t see what else was so fascinating about it.

“And he let you loose on his sock drawer?”

“More or less.”

Well. Perhaps Bixby and Morse were closer than Tony had realised. Odd – Morse had never had much of a knack for forming friendships back at Lonsdale. Then again, Bixby was...well... _Bixby_. Ever charming, ever pleasant. Maybe he’d worn Morse down with relentless friendliness. That seemed to be more or less how Susan had managed it, after all.

Morse lifted a corner of the photograph away from the wall and stuck his hand behind it.

“What are you –?”

Morse brandished the key he’d just extracted from behind the frame with slightly more vindication than Tony felt entirely comfortable with.

“Oh,” said Tony.

Morse ignored him in favour of rifling through the contents of Bixby’s wardrobe.

Tony, feeling rather surplus to requirements, went to retrieve the initially-requested novel from Bixby’s bedside table. It was a thick-ish paperback, and when he dislodged the spectacles case from atop it and picked it up, he found himself unsurprised by the title. _Beau Geste_. Well, Bixby did seem the sort to enjoy a good old-fashioned adventure story. Judging by the slight tattiness of the page edges and the creases in the spine, it was a book he’d revisited.

As Morse emerged from the wardrobe, triumphantly brandishing a modest wooden lockbox, a thought occurred to Tony. He’d never seen Bixby wearing glasses.

“Morse,” said Tony.

“Hm?” Morse replied absently, fitting the key into the box’s lock and turning it gently.

“Whose are these, do you suppose?”

Morse took the case from him, frowning, and opened it.

“Conrad,” Tony read from the label inside. “Who the hell is Conrad?”

There was a torn scrap of thick paper beneath the specs themselves. Tony fished it out; turned it over. Half a photograph. Wordlessly, Morse handed him the other half – apparently part of the contents of the box. Two boys in tuxedos stared out at them, identical, save that one was bespectacled.

Tony raised an eyebrow at Morse, and turned the photograph over.

_Conrad and Charlie_ was written on the back in ageing blue ink.

Tony felt suddenly very sure that they were intruding on Bixby’s privacy.

“All right, Morse, we’ve got the book. Surely that’s enough snooping?”

“Look at this,” said Morse, thrusting a piece of paper under Tony’s nose. A letter. “Kathy – that’s Kay Belborough.”

“That doesn’t explain who this Charlie fellow is.”

“Doesn’t it?” said Morse, “‘You’re my heart, Charlie Greel, but every time I look at you...’”

Tony stared at Morse, verging on alarm.

“Bixby?”

“Think about it, Tony. I mean, doesn’t all this -” Morse gestured expansively at the house around them, “- seem just a little bit too...perfect?”

“I don’t know, Pagan,” said Tony, “Bixby’s as rich as Croesus. He can afford to make it perfect.”

“And he doesn’t have embarrassing great aunts who send him awful vases for his birthday?”

“Not everybody does. _You_ don’t. Besides, it’s not as though he inherited the place: perhaps he’s just not sentimental about decorating.”

“You don’t have to be sentimental to keep family photographs.”

“Not everyone keeps them on show.”

“No,” Morse allowed, “I suppose not.” He squinted suspiciously at the box, then tipped its contents out onto the bed.

Tony made a soft, involuntary noise of protest.

The resulting small pile of papers transpired, on investigation, to be mostly made up of letters, but there were a few photographs amongst them – one of Bixby and Kay as teenagers; another of Bixby at perhaps twenty, standing in the garden of a picturesque sort of house, between a pair of tall men in dog-collars, maybe ten or so years older, with a black Labrador retriever lounging in the foreground; a third depicted a neatly-mown quadrangle surrounded by an imposing stone building with rather a lot of spires and crenellated parapets, and a fair amount of ivy on the walls.

“That’s not any of the Oxford colleges, is it?” asked Tony, relatively certain he hadn’t seen the place in person, despite the superficial similarity of the architecture.

Morse picked the photograph in question up to take a closer look.

“No,” he said at length, “I don’t think so. And I sincerely doubt it’s Harvard.”

“Cambridge, perhaps?”

Morse gave Tony a slightly peculiar sideways look, as though he’d just said something unexpectedly profound.

“How quickly do you think you could drive there?”

“Um,” said Tony, “an hour and a half, perhaps? Maybe two hours, if there’s traffic.”

Morse glanced at his watch.

“First thing tomorrow, then?”

“Hold on, Morse. We can’t just go gallivanting off to Cambridge with a photograph and try to find a college it matches. Can we?”

Morse, already busily scouring one of the letters from the box, merely shrugged, as if to say ‘why not?’

* * *

Back at the dacha – Anthony was far less inclined to stand his ground against him than Peter was – Morse leafed through Bix’s letters again, hoping to spot something he’d missed on first examination. The lack of envelopes also meant a lack of addresses, but if he could just find a recognisable _place_ mentioned, that would be a start.

The letter from Kay was useless on that front, and the others weren’t all that much better. Quite a few – short notes, addressed to _Joss_ , rather than _Charlie_ – were signed ‘Sidney’, and whilst they contained occasional invitations to meet ‘in the quad’ or ‘at the college library’ or ‘at Fitzbillies’ (whatever _that_ meant), Morse had yet to spot the name of the college in question anywhere.

He laid another letter aside, and took a gulp of whisky from the glass at his elbow.

* * *

Bluebell was running very sweetly, and the sky was Wedgwood blue overhead as they cruised eastwards along the M40. Tony frowned.

“I still don’t think this is a very good idea, Pagan.” He had to half-shout it to be heard above the wind-noise.

“Do you have a better one?” Morse asked.

As the answer was, in fact, ‘no’, Tony chose to assume the question was rhetorical. They drove on in silence.

* * *

A very cheery nurse delivered a vase of yellow roses not long after Joss woke.

“I was told to tell you that Harry says ‘get well soon,’ and he’ll be by later today to see how you’re doing.” she said, arranging them on the bedside cabinet.

He smiled, and thanked her for passing on the message as she set about taking his vital signs.

* * *

“Stop the car!”

Alarmed, Tony stepped on the brake hard enough to throw them both forward rather uncomfortably – though they’d hardly been going all that quickly in the first place, having followed a diversion into a village that Tony wasn’t familiar with – before pulling over to the side of the road.

“What are you doing?” he asked Morse, who had scrambled out of the door as soon as they came to a halt.

“That’s the house!”

“What?”

“There, look, the one from the photograph.”

Tony looked. The house across the street did seem rather familiar – a picturesque sort of building, with climbing roses round the porch. From the plaque by the gate, it was a vicarage. Almost certainly the same building, then. Tony switched off the engine and hurried to catch up with Morse, who was already across the street.

He reached him halfway up the garden path.

When the got to the door, Morse gave three firm knocks, and they waited. Nobody answered. Morse swore, quietly but emphatically.

“Come on, Pagan. We can try again on our way back to Oxford.”

“Yes,” said Morse, “I suppose we’ll have to.”

They turned back towards the road.

* * *

Morse frowned up at yet another college, fully prepared to attempt to gain entry to the quad simply by looking like he knew where he was going. Anthony might not like the method, but it had worked well for them so far. Admittedly, it made it rather difficult to check the photograph against the view immediately – if people saw you doing that sort of thing, they tended to realise pretty quickly you weren’t a student – but he’d looked at it enough times the night before to be reasonably certain of what he was looking for.

The archway onto the quad was grand enough, to be sure.

Before them stood a wide swath of pristinely-striped lawn, and about it rose a great stone edifice, all arched doorways and stained glass windows, over which delicate spires sat atop the crenels and merlons of a decorative battlement. A slow, triumphant smile crept its way across Morse’s lips.

“Well,” said Anthony, softly, “Corpus Christi. That’s one question answered.”

Morse turned to face him, surprised.

“There was a sign – before we came in,” said Anthony.

“Oh,” said Morse, feeling rather a prize fool.

“What do we do now?”

Morse felt a sudden twinge of affection. Anthony had never been one to jump on his occasional tendency to overlook the obvious. He held up his warrant card with a determined smile.

“We ask questions.”

“Oh, good,” said Anthony, in a tone that suggested he’d rather hoped that _wouldn’t_ be the answer.

Morse’s smile broadened.

* * *

“Hello, Bix.” Harry beamed fondly at him from the doorway. “How are you feeling?”

Joss took a moment to consider the honest answer to that.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he said, at length, “but I think that might be the morphine.”

That earned him a low chuckle. Harry sat down in the chair beside the bed and leaned across to give Joss’ forearm a brief, gentle squeeze.

“You’re a good lad, Bix.” He looked Joss straight in the eye, suddenly deadly serious. “Now, I want you to be honest with me – do you remember who did this to you?”

“No, Harry. I remember speaking to Kay, but beyond that...”

“Alright,” said Harry, “Don’t you fret on it. But if you do remember, Bix, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

Much as Joss liked to think of Harry as merely a very generous and somewhat paternal friend, he rather suspected he knew what was really being said.

“If you promise not to do anything silly.”

“Now, Bix,” Harry soothed, “you know I only want to look out for you.”

“I don’t want you getting into trouble on my account. Let the police handle it.”

Harry frowned at him.

“What’s it to the police whether they catch the bastard? They’ve no reason to care beyond another blot on their less-than-spotless collective record.”

“I’d like to think it matters to Morse,” said Joss softly, both defensive and – ridiculously – slightly shy.

“Your boy Morse is a copper?”

“You don’t have to sound so incredulous.”

Harry raised his hands in mock surrender.

“All right, Bix. I’ll take your word. I thought he’d been inside, is all. Word on the grapevine.”

“He was,” said Joss.

“Bloody hell,” said Harry, “Poor bugger.”

Joss looked at him, feeling rather as though he’d missed something.

“They don’t like coppers inside,” Harry elaborated, face grim. “Inmates nor guards. And he’s only a slip of a thing.”

It was a horrid thought. Morse was a good person; awkward as hell, and stubborner than was even remotely good for him, but _good_. The idea of him being deliberately made to suffer made Joss distinctly uncomfortable.

“Bix,” said Harry gently, patting his hand, “Don’t you think on it. I shouldn’t have said it. It’s over and done with, and he’s all right, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” Joss pulled himself together, pasting on a determined smile. “He stopped in to see me yesterday afternoon.”

“There you are, then.”

A thought occurred to Joss.

“Harry?”

“Yes?”

“Exactly how many people did you bribe to get in here outside visiting hours?”

Harry smirked, tapping the side of his nose conspiratorially. Joss grinned.

* * *

The porter – a pleasant fellow with the same vaguely parental manner Tony remembered the porter at Lonsdale adopting – had pointed them in the direction of a Professor Craddock, who lectured in English.

Craddock, it transpired, was a tall, wiry man in his late forties, with an angular face that had probably made him look both boyish and perpetually underfed as a young man, but which now – coupled with slightly greying temples and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles – lent him an almost aristocratic air. He welcomed Tony and Morse into his office with an easy smile.

“Good morning, gentlemen. What can I do for you?”

“Detective Constable Morse, Oxford City Police –” Morse extended his warrant card “– This is Anthony Donn. I was hoping you could give us some information on a man I’m told you employed as your secretary for a time.” He held out the photograph of Bixby and the priests for the professor to take.

“Joss Greel?” Craddock asked, looking down at the photograph, “He’s not in any trouble, is he?”

“No, Professor,” said Morse, “He was the target of a recent...incident. He hasn’t lived in Oxford long – it seemed prudent to look into any animosity there might have been elsewhere.”

“Is he all right?” The professor sounded genuinely concerned, at least to Tony’s ear.

“He’s expected to make a full recovery.”

“I’m glad to hear it. And it’s Paul, please. No need to stand on ceremony. What would you like to know?”

They settled themselves around the fireplace: Craddock in a faded, slightly tatty tweed armchair; Tony and Morse wedged together on the small Chesterfield opposite.

“If you could start with how you came to know each other, Professor?”

“It would have been a week or two into the Lent term of ‘55, I think. I’d just about finished a manuscript – symbolism in Kipling’s poetry – and I was looking for someone to type it up to send for publication. I’m a widower, so I hadn’t the option of asking my wife to do it, the way a lot of dons do. None of my students seemed terribly interested in the work, and I was rather at my wit’s end when Canon Chambers – the gentleman on the left in that photograph of yours; he used to take seminars twice a week for the theology students, and we met for coffee occasionally – suggested Joss.”

“How did Canon Chambers know Mister Greel, do you know?”

It was a peculiar experience, Tony reflected, to sit in on what was effectively a police interview. Detective Constable Morse was somehow not quite the same creature as Pagan: the job gave him a sharp, purposeful edge that contrasted oddly with the vaguely ethereal being that he had seemed at nineteen. Not that Pagan had not had purpose – he had always been single-minded to the point of incorrigibility when something mattered to him – but DC Morse was a solid, tangible presence in a way that Pagan had never quite managed. Tony wasn’t altogether sure he liked it.

“His curate found him half-frozen in the nave of St Mary and St Andrew’s on Christmas eve, apparently. Joss never told me how he’d come to end up there, and I didn’t like to pry. I got the impression he’d had a falling out with his family; perhaps that had something to do with it. Sidney – Canon Chambers, that is – took him in for a time.”

“And the work Mister Greel did for you – it was just typing?”

“No,” said Craddock, “or, at least, not for long. He had a sharp mind and he was always very willing to learn – he used to come along to my lectures and take notes for absent students. It was a far more reliable system than letting them try to sort it out amongst their friends. And I have a son – Simon – who seven, almost eight, at the time. There were a few times when he was ill and I had tutorials to take that I couldn’t get out of. Joss sat with him for me until I could get back.”

“Can you think of anyone who might have had cause to dislike him?”

Craddock’s brow furrowed, and a pensive silence descended briefly over the room.

“I only ever found Joss Greel to be a kind, intelligent, and unfailingly polite young man. He got on well with my students and my son, he was an excellent typist, and I don’t think I can remember ever hearing a word said against him. Well, there were a few teasing comments about his accent early on, but that’s students being students; not evidence of enmity.”

“Accent?” asked Tony, without thinking.

“East London,” came the reply. “He worked hard on his elocution, but in the early days it was very apparent that he wasn’t from the same stock as the students, and they ribbed him somewhat over it at times.”

That thoughtful little frown that Tony recognised well from his Lonsdale days had made itself at home on Morse’s brow.

“About when did he leave your employment?”

“The twenty-seventh of April, 1960.”

“That’s very precise, Professor.”

“It was the day after Simon’s thirteenth birthday – Joss had taken him to a carnival on Jesus Green to celebrate. That morning, he didn’t arrive for my ten o’clock seminar. I thought perhaps he wasn’t feeling well, so I dropped by the flat he rented on Pembroke Street to see if there was anything he needed, and found it empty. No note; no goodbye; no forwarding address. He’d put four weeks’ rent through his landlady’s letterbox in lieu of notice. I still owe him that month’s pay, but I’ve no idea where to send the cheque.”

“Ah,” said Morse delicately. Tony eyed him cautiously – that was the tone which said he knew something, or thought he did.

There was a brief moment of quiet.

“Thank you for your time, Professor,” said Morse, “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Not at all.” Craddock smiled, and it looked genuine enough. “Might I ask a favour of you, Constable?”

Morse gave a reserved inclination of his head.

“Would you tell Joss, when you see him, that Simon and I send our best wishes? And that we’d be glad to see him, if he’s ever passing through?”

“Certainly, Professor.” The corner of Morse’s mouth twitched upward. “Goodbye.”

With that, Morse ushered Tony out of the office. He loped away quickly enough that Tony had to jog a few steps to catch him up. There was a lopsided, triumphant little smirk on Morse’s lips.

“What are you looking so smug about?” hissed Tony as they strode along the corridor towards their stairwell, not entirely confident they couldn’t be overheard.

“There was a carnival,” said Morse, which explained precisely nothing.


	2. Ride - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which conclusions are reached, poetry is misquoted, and Harry Rose is protective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments on Chapter 1. Sorry this one's taken a while, but I hope you all enjoy it. Major love, as ever, to Katie, my long-suffering best mate and beta-reader.

Peter frowned at the empty driveway. Anthony Donn’s flashy blue convertible was conspicuous by its absence. Perhaps, he thought to himself, frustrated, it would have been advisable to ring ahead.

He checked his watch. Twelve fifteen. Time enough to drop by Morse’s dacha; see if he’d gone back there for the night. He certainly hadn’t returned to his flat, Peter knew, because Nurse Hicks had rung to ask after him. How Morse managed to attract quite so many pretty, intelligent women when he was such a prickly bastard was a source of constant bemusement.

The leaves overhead cast dappled shadows that danced across the road – if it justified being called a road – through the woods towards the lake as he drove. It was beautiful, in its way, but Peter imagined the solitude would quickly become oppressive. The last thing a man needed was to be alone with his thoughts for too long.

There was no obvious sign of life at the dacha. Peter parked the Jag and went to take a closer look. No lights, no movement visible through the windows. He tapped on the door; waited; tapped again, more firmly. No answer. He wasn’t particularly surprised. It was a pretty conundrum, but not a particularly difficult one: no Morse and no Donn almost certainly meant they’d gone off somewhere together. Or, rather, that Morse had decided to go off somewhere and Donn had been dragged along to play chauffeur. Peter had the impression that that was how their particular friendship worked. As like as not, it always had been.

Still, knowing the two people he had been hoping to talk to were likely together did not actually amount to knowing where they were.

Beyond breaking into the dacha, there was probably very little he could do about that particular mystery, but as he’d already driven as far as the lake, it wouldn’t be difficult to drop by Bixby’s place. And it might provide some information to make the drive worthwhile.

* * *

Joss caught himself drifting, blinked rapidly a few times, and forced himself to sit a little straighter against his pillows. A low chuckle from Harry told him that he hadn’t been all that subtle about doing so.

“I’m sorry, Harry. I promise you aren’t boring me.”

“I know, son,” said Harry, smiling indulgently. “About time I got going, anyway. You get some rest, all right?”

He raised a hand as though to ruffle Joss’s hair, and wasn’t entirely smooth in changing the gesture for a gentle pat of his uninjured cheek. It made Joss feel somewhat like a five-year-old, but he didn’t mind. Not from Harry.

“Night, Harry.”

Harry gave a soft huff that was almost a laugh.

“Good night, Bix.”

* * *

Bixby’s place felt rather like a mausoleum when it was empty, thought Peter. Grandeur aplenty, but not what you might call cosy. Everything perfect and all for show: all pillars and marble and priceless trinkets arranged where they could easily be admired. Peter glanced upwards, and noticed with a frown that even the ceiling was lavishly decorated. Of course it bloody was. Gilded and everything. What a bloody joke.

He started with the last doorway on the right.

A study – all dark wood and deep green velvet, with a pair of windows on the far wall that looked out over one of the formal gardens; still opulent, but in a far more personal way than the grand atrium Peter had just left. A decanter sat on the desk, along with a pair of cut-crystal tumblers that didn’t seem to have been put away since last being used. Hadn’t Morse said he and Bixby had talked here, before going out to the lake?

A gent’s evening scarf – the white silk sort that toffs wore over their dinner jackets when it was too warm for formal coats – hung haphazardly from the back of one of the chairs. Bixby’s, presumably: Peter couldn’t imagine Morse had the money for such a thing. He let his fingers skim the fabric. From the softness of the thing, it was just as expensive as it looked. He was almost – _almost_ – envious. But then, given that Inspector Thursday suspected Bixby’s money was closely linked to some connection with Harry Rose, of all people… Well, a detective sergeant’s pay might not be extravagant, but at least he knew it was all above board.

There was a dull thump from above, as though someone had dropped something upstairs.

Peter froze.

There was a chance, he supposed, that he’d been wrong about Morse and Donn being together, and his erstwhile colleague was, in fact, doing some technically-illicit investigating on his own.

He padded silently across the room to the door, which stood ajar – he hadn’t pushed it all the way to when he’d come in – and peered out, cautious to avoid making himself more visible from the atrium than he had to.

A single set of middling-heavy footsteps – a man’s, Peter thought – crossed overhead, moving towards the gallery-like landing. A door touched audibly home in its frame, and a pair of legs came into view.

That wasn’t a pair of Morse’s cheap, unironed trousers.

Fuck.

* * *

They were finally on their way back to Oxford, and Tony felt immensely relieved. Beside him, Morse was staring off across the passing landscape. Probably scowling to himself about the lack of familiar faces at the vicarage when they’d dropped by again. Poor old Pagan. The Church Of England _would_ go about promoting members of the clergy away from their old parishes – it was almost as if they didn’t consider the convenience of unofficial police investigations.

Bluebell was running sweetly, the sky was Wedgwood blue overhead, and Tony couldn’t help but smile.

* * *

The legs descended the stairs, and Peter’s breath caught. That was Bixby. Or rather, it _wasn’t_ Bixby, because Bixby was lying between starched white sheets in a bed in Cowley General Hospital – Peter had seen him there with his own eyes – but it _looked_ like Bixby. Same height; same build; the same hairstyle, for crying out loud. It was eerie. Like watching a ghost. And Peter was struck by the rather unpleasant realisation that, if there were two Bixbys – one here, and one in a hospital bed in Cowley – there was a distinct likelihood that this one had been the man who shot the other.

Peter pressed himself a little more snugly into the shadows and waited. If it came to it, he might get away with talking his way out of a confrontation, but he preferred the idea of coming back later with backup, if it was at all possible.

Not-Bixby paused, about two-thirds of the way down the staircase, to perch himself on a step and fish in his pocket, pulling out a silver cigarette case. It was a smooth, familiar gesture; one that spoke of habit. And it meant Peter might have to move – it would be less suspicious to be seen actively moving around a house he’d thought was empty and had a warrant to search than to be spotted hiding behind a door.

He took a breath, and walked purposefully out of the study, aiming for the door opposite; then ‘spotted’ the man on the stair and executed what he hoped was a convincing double-take.

Not-Bixby certainly looked surprised enough to see him: the cigarette case dropped from his fingers and skittered down the stairs with a clatter.

“Bixby?” asked Peter, and if his voice wasn’t as steady as he would have liked, perhaps that added to the impression of shock.

“Yes,” said Not-Bixby, standing. “I’m sorry, can I help you, Sergeant...?”

“Jakes.” Peter held out his warrant card, and Not-Bixby descended the last few steps to look at it. “The victim of a shooting was found in Lake Silence the night before last.”

“And you thought it was…? _Ah_. I suppose that explains why the house is empty – I had wondered. I’ve been away on business; only got back about an hour ago.”

It was a perfectly-delivered story, and Peter could well imagine believing it if he hadn’t known better.

“Well, I’ll get out of your hair for now, Mister Bixby – there’ll be things to discuss at the station – but someone will be along in the next day or two to take your statement.”

“Of course, Sergeant Jakes,” came the reply, “I do hope you find out who your man in the lake was.”

Peter gave the man a polite nod, and left as quickly as he could without visibly hurrying.

He drove far enough from the house to be reasonably certain he was out of both sight and earshot; then pulled over and picked up the radio.

* * *

A soft tap on the door roused Joss from a light doze. For a moment, he didn’t quite recognise his surroundings; then – oh, of course – hospital. He glanced at the clock above the door. Two o’clock sharp.

“Come in,” he called, shuffling himself further up the bed to sit mostly-upright against his pillows.

It was Morse, and his friend – Anthony? Yes, Anthony, that was it.

“Hello, Bix,” said Morse, “I brought your book.” He brandished the novel in question, before setting it down on the bedside cabinet.

Anthony gave a slightly awkward little wave.

“Bixby.”

“Hello, old man. Anthony. Thank you – it’s been frightfully dull in here with noting to read.”

Morse, apparently deciding to leave the room’s sole chair to Anthony, perched himself on the foot of Joss’s bed. Anthony continued to hover for a moment, then sat down rather suddenly when Morse gave him a sharp look. Joss found it a rather amusing reversal of roles – back when he’d first met Morse, Anthony had been the one in charge, and Morse the reluctant hanger-on. How strange, to think that had been barely more than a week ago.

“How are you, Bix?” Morse asked.

Joss prodded him lightly in the thigh with his toe.

“Come on – I gave you carte blanche over my bedroom, and _that’s_ the best you can come up with?”

Morse looked slightly surprised, and Anthony went red.

“You don’t mind?” asked Morse, and Joss’s heart broke a little for him, because he sounded almost afraid of the answer.

“If I minded, I wouldn’t have invited you to snoop in the first place, now would I?”

Morse looked at him like he was something holy, and Joss suddenly felt that he would give an awful lot for Morse to always look at him that way. Which was silly, and selfish. He felt it anyway.

“Tell me about Cambridge,” said Morse.

Joss smiled.

* * *

There were times when Kay Belborough looked at her husband and could almost remember why she agreed to marry him. Bruce, when he was sober and happy, could be a charming man. He was never a romantic – not like Charlie – but he had been bright and pleasant, and he had offered her the world.

Most of the time, she wished she had never been so foolish as to accept.

But then, there were times like this, when Bruce was quiet and smiling, and seemed so very like the man she had married. And a part of her wished she could live in those moments forever.

* * *

“You’d like Sidney, I think,” said Bix with a grin, “He’s forever overthinking things, too.”

Morse almost felt he ought to be insulted by the insinuation, but Bix seemed so fond in his teasing that he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but smile.

“Is he really?”

“I’m not sure I ever saw him finish writing a sermon in less than three drafts.”

Morse raised an eyebrow.

“And you’re certain he wasn’t simply a poor typist?” he said, with calculated seriousness.

Bix laughed at that, rich and low and cheerful, but it quickly devolved into a harsh cough that took some moments to suppress.

“Bix?” Morse reached out to squeeze his friend’s shoulder gently. “Are you all right?”

“Never better,” said Bix, but the smile that he paired with it looked tight and uncomfortable.

“ _I’ll fetch a doctor,_ ” Anthony mouthed to Morse, and slipped out of the room.

Morse quitted his perch at the foot of the bed to help Bix settle himself back against the pillows more comfortably. He went to move away, but Bix caught him by the hand.

“Stay with me, old man?”

“Of course.”

Morse pulled the chair Anthony had vacated a little closer and sat down, his fingers firmly intertwined with Bix’s.

* * *

Peter sat down on the bottom step of Bixby’s ridiculous staircase with a frustrated sigh. Not a sign of Bixby’s double anywhere in the house. Calling for backup before attempting an arrest had been the _sensible_ thing to do, but now they’d lost the man, and it felt like Peter’s fault.

“Well, then,” said Inspector Thursday, “I suppose the question now is where he’s most likely gone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any thoughts, Jakes?”

“To finish the job, perhaps?” He paused. “Only, I got the impression he thought Bixby was already dead, sir, and I don’t _think_ I said anything to change his mind about that.”

“Which means he thinks we have a body we couldn’t confidently identify.”

“Well, yes, I suppose so. But what’s that got to do with – _oh_. You think he’s gone to find someone else for us to identify it as?”

“If he’s trying to pass himself off as Bixby, it would be the logical solution.”

“Shit.”

“That about sums it up, Sergeant. Come on.”

Thursday strode out of the house towards the car they’d arrived in. Jakes and the handful of uniformed officers they’d brought with them followed.

* * *

“There’s definitely some fluid in your lungs, Mister Bixby,” said the doctor who’d come back with Anthony, “Most likely a mild case of pneumonia. It’s not unexpected, but we’ll keep a close eye on you, and if it doesn’t improve shortly then we’ll look at adjusting the antibiotics you’re being given.”

Joss wasn’t quite sure how best to respond to that news, so he settled for a nod and a “Thank you, doctor.”

Morse’s hand tightened a little around his own, and Joss managed a smile for his friend as the doctor left the room.

“I’ll be all right, old man.”

“I know,” said Morse, though he sounded rather as though he was trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.

“Where had we got to?” asked Joss, by way of looking for a distraction.

“Sidney,” said Anthony, helpfully, “and his many drafts of sermons.”

* * *

Roddy Farthingale hurried along Holywell Street, feeling rather uncomfortably like he was being watched. He looked back over his shoulder, and saw nobody that stood out from the ranks of the passers-by.

Paranoia, then. Withdrawal, even. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed easily enough when he got back to his rooms. He walked a little faster.

* * *

“Simon had been excited about the carnival for days,” said Bixby, “and then one of Paul’s colleague’s caught the flu, and Paul took on his marking rather at the last minute. It seemed a shame for Simon to miss his birthday treat, so I took him instead.”

“And you saw your father and Conrad.” It wasn’t a question, and Tony found himself slightly taken aback by Morse’s confidence.

Bixby nodded, suddenly sombre.

“We’d been having a pleasant enough time – rides and toffee apples and what-have-you – and Simon saw there was a sideshow magician. If the sign had been for Janus Greel, I’d have talked him out of it, but it didn’t occur to me that the act had changed its name, and Simon was always keen on magic. I used to do card tricks for him, when I dropped by Paul’s to deliver finished chapters.”

There was a moment of quiet as Bixby seemingly collected himself. Tony wondered if encouraging him to discuss something he clearly found upsetting was _entirely_ a good idea, given the somewhat fragile current state of his health, but it seemed rather rude to interrupt by saying so.

“I doubt either of them saw us – you can’t make out much of the audience, usually, when the stage lights are up – but I couldn’t be certain. So I took Simon back home, then went to my flat and packed what I could carry.”

“Where did you go?” asked Morse.

“Boston.”

“Lincolnshire?” asked Tony. He’d been there once – a rather twee little town, and somewhat rural for his taste.

“Massachusetts,” said Bixby.

“Oh,” said Tony, slightly surprised.

Morse smiled that slow, satisfied smile which said he’d been right about something. Tony felt a slightly childish urge to stick his tongue out at him.

“I spent most of my savings to get there, but cities aren’t generally hard to find work in if you aren’t fussy. The first eighteen months or so, I had a pretty steady job on the docks – loading and unloading cargo. Hard graft, but it paid well enough. Then I dislocated my shoulder and ended up life modelling at an art school while it healed.”

Bixby said it rather cavalierly – as though the link between shoulder injuries and getting paid to stand around decoratively in the altogether was entirely obvious and unworthy of note – which Tony found slightly odd.

Morse had gone very slightly pink around the ears, which Tony found odder.

Apparently, Morse had noticed Tony’s staring, because he cleared his throat and asked – very levelly – how Bixby had ended up coming back to England.

“It was the summer of ‘63, and I was shining shoes outside one of the nicer hotels. Harry stopped by in a rather nice pair of brogues, and we got talking.”

“Harry Rose?” Morse cut in.

Bixby nodded.

“He said he was looking for somebody to run a club for him in London. He wanted someone clean-cut; genteel enough to keep the sheltered rich kids happy, but not afraid to break up a fight if it came down to it. Asked if I was interested. It sounded a safer bet than odd-jobbing round Boston, so I took him up on it. He had a frankly ridiculous amount of suits tailored for me, and I’ve been the public face of the Belvedere ever since.”

Morse frowned, and Tony couldn’t quite parse _why_.

“And that’s all you do for him? Run the Belvedere?”

Tony winced at the directness of that question – suddenly it all felt rather like old times. Pagan never had put much thought into sparing people’s feelings when his curiosity came into play.

“I know what Harry is, old man, but he’s never expected me to do so much as count cards. I make sure the punters are happy, I keep the books in good order, and I don’t ask too many questions.”

There was a moment of rather tense silence, in which Bixby looked firm, Morse looked pensive, and Tony felt somewhat worried. Then Bixby smiled, and it was like a cloud had passed.

* * *

Roddy let out a relieved huff.

“God, Bix, you scared the hell out of me. Did you speak to Harry?”

Bix didn’t answer.

“Bix?”

Bix wasn’t smiling. Roddy took a step backwards, and his heels came up against a wall.

“Look, this isn’t funny, Bix. Just tell me what he said.”

Still Bix said nothing, and there was an awful, sinking sensation in Roddy’s stomach as he realised he was trapped.

“Please, Bix...”

* * *

Peter swore. They had little to go on, and it was getting them precisely nowhere.

If Morse were there, he would work something out, because Morse had some sort of sixth bloody sense for crime that mere mortals couldn’t equal.

_Morse._

Morse had been to at least one of Bixby’s parties; he knew some of the people who frequented them. If Bixby’s double wanted to provide another identity to what he thought was Bixby’s _c_ _orpse_ , wouldn’t it make sense to pick someone who might feasibly have been out by the lake that night?

One of Bixby’s guests, then. At least, it seemed likely. And there couldn’t be that many who looked sufficiently physically similar to Bixby himself. Peter glanced at his watch – not long gone three – and got up, snagging his jacket from the back of his chair and shrugging into it as he left the CID.

He gave the desk sergeant a nod before leaving the building.

“I’m headed out to Cowley General, if anyone needs me.”

He didn’t wait for a response.

For such a short drive, the journey seemed interminable, and Peter found himself feeling far less forgiving of the small assortment of drivers who insisted on staying three miles per hour below the limit than he ought to be. By the time he had parked the car and made his way up to the correct side ward, he was fairly solidly in a blue funk.

Greetings went out of the window.

“Did you know he has a ringer?” It came out rather more accusatory than Peter had intended, and Morse looked somewhat taken aback. It took Peter a moment to notice that Bixby had gone extremely pale. It took the wind out of his sails rather.

“Are you all right?” he asked, feeling slightly guilty for barging into the man’s sickroom.

Bixby wasn’t blinking, and almost didn’t seem entirely present, but he nodded. Peter supposed that was something.

“Conrad,” said Anthony Donn, whose quiet presence Peter probably should have noted earlier.

“Bix’s twin brother,” Morse offered, by way of explanation.

“Did it occur to any one of you that it might be helpful to _share_ that information?”

Morse’s face was a mask of stubbornness, but Donn, at least, had the grace to look slightly sheepish.

“Have you seen him?” Bixby sounded oddly intense, though his face was still rather bloodless, and there was a strange look in his eye that Peter did not particularly like.

“Up at the house, earlier today.”

“ _Fuck._ ” said Bixby.

“Look, can any of you think of anyone at the party the other night who looks superficially similar? Height, build, hair colour – don’t worry about the face.”

“He thinks I was too late?” Morse asked, frowning.

“And he was gone when I came back with back-up.”

“Roddy, perhaps,” said Bixby, softly, “Roddy Farthingale. He studies…history, I think, at one of the colleges, though I don’t know which – he’s something of a regular at my parties, but we haven’t really spoken much.”

“Right,” said Peter, turning to go. “Morse?”

Morse gave Bixby and Donn a funny, homesick sort of look, and went with him.

* * *

Kay opened the door and very nearly fainted.

“ _Charlie?_ ”

It couldn’t be Charlie, surely – Tony had said he’d been shot, hadn’t he? But he had that sweet look in his eyes that she’d fallen for all those years ago, and he was smiling that same besotted smile at her.

“Kathy,” he breathed, as though she were something holy.

Tony had to have been wrong – silly man. She threw herself into Charlie’s arms and buried her face in his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of his aftershave. In that moment, nothing at all could be wrong in the world. Warm in Charlie’s embrace, everything was perfect, if only for a little while.

“Come away with me, Kathy,” he whispered.

Kay stepped back.

“I can’t, Charlie. You know that.”

He took her hand, and ran the pad of his thumb gently across her knuckles, just as he had often done, a lifetime ago.

“Come away with me,” he said again, and Kathy struggled to find it in her heart to say no.

* * *

Bixby hadn’t said a word since Morse and Sergeant Jakes had left, and Tony was beginning to find the silence oppressive.

“Would you prefer it if I left?” he asked gently.

Bixby turned that liquid brown gaze of his on Tony, looking for all the world as though he was surprised to see him.

“I think I’ve remembered something,” he said.

Tony was momentarily lost.

“On the jetty. After Kathy left. I think I remember Conrad.”

“Shit,” said Tony, with feeling.

“Would you check on her for me? Kathy?”

There was a strange urgency to the way Bixby said it, and Tony was not a man of hard enough heart to refuse him.

“Of course I will.” He went to leave; then paused in the doorway. “You take care of yourself, Bixby. Don’t do anything rash.”

Bixby nodded, and Tony chose to trust him on it, heading for the nearest exit at a brisk clip.

Bluebell, ever reliable, snarled to life at the first time of asking, and if Tony did not actually break the speed limit on his way out towards Bruce’s, he certainly walked the line.

* * *

Kathy clung to her seat in alarm as Charlie swerved to a stop in order to avoid ploughing into a very familiar-looking dark blue convertible that sat sideways across the small road past the lake.

“Tony?” she called out, spotting his gangling, rather rumpled figure standing by the car, a wheel-brace dangling from one dirt-smeared hand, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I might very well ask you the same question,” he replied, sounding more indignant than he had any right to.

Beside Kathy, Charlie bristled. She laid a restraining hand on his arm – much as this was the last moment she wanted to see Tony, he was about the only genuinely decent relation she’d gained from her marriage to Bruce, and she’d hate to see him get hurt.

“I can’t stay, Tony. Surely you understand that?”

Tony gave her a very odd sort of look.

“That’s…not entirely the part of this situation I object to.”

“Tony?”

“Kay,” he said, very carefully, “who exactly do you think it is you’re leaving with?”

Charlie’s arm tensed beneath Kathy’s fingers, and he shrugged out of her hold to get out of the car. Tony watched him with a wary expression that he usually reserved for Bruce when he was in a particularly foul mood.

“Surely you aren’t telling me you’ve suddenly forgotten Joss Bixby?”

“The man _I_ know as Joss Bixby,” said Tony, not taking his eyes off Charlie, “is currently occupying a bed on a side ward in Cowley General Hospital.”

Kathy could not quite comprehend what he meant by that. Or perhaps she merely didn’t _want_ to comprehend it.

“Tony…”

“I’m sorry, Kay,” said Tony, and looked briefly right at her to offer her a rather sad smile.

Charlie sprang away from her, flinging himself at Tony with obvious intent to harm. Tony swung awkwardly, clipping him on the side of the head with the wheel-brace.

Charlie – no, _Conrad_ – dropped in a sprawling heap to the floor. There was blood at his temple, and Tony looked rather horrified until they both saw his chest rising and falling.

“You know,” said Tony breathlessly, dropping his wheel-brace, “I hadn’t really thought any further than this when I was worrying about what to do.”

Somehow, the only response Kay could come up with was to laugh. She caught Tony’s eye, and suddenly he was laughing too. Perhaps they were both a little hysterical, but it felt better than crying over the situation.

“Oh God, Tony,” Kay murmured, once the laughter died away, “What am I going to do?”

“For now, you’re going to help me get this fellow into the car so we can deliver him to the police. And then we’ll work something out.” He took her hand and squeezed it gently. “I promise.”

Tony’s reassurance didn’t make things all right, not by a long chalk, but it did make them seem a little less awful. Kay managed a wobbly smile.

* * *

It had been, Jim reflected, a very odd sort of day, so far. First, Sergeant Jakes had come back all of a dither about there being another Bixby; then nobody had been able to find the bloke; and now Morse’s old mate had showed up with Lady Belborough, telling some wild story about having brought the other Bixby with them in the back of the car.

Which sounded like such nonsense that he hadn’t honestly expected, when he followed them out to take a look, that there would, in fact, be a dead-ringer for Bixby trussed up with what looked rather like a couple of ladies’ silk scarves in the back seat of an unfamiliar red sports car. And yet, there he was. It was all a rather rum do.

“Well then, Matey,” he said to Bixby’s double, who was glaring at him rather viciously, “I think you’d better come along with me.”

* * *

Tony’s first thought on entering the interview room was that Sergeant Jakes did not look best pleased. Some small, rebellious part of him felt slightly put out about that – after all, he had apprehended an attempted murderer. Admittedly, it had been mostly by accident, and he hoped to God he was never called upon to do anything similar again, but nonetheless…

“What can I do for you, Sergeant?” he asked, with his best congenial smile.

“For starters, you can tell me what the hell you were thinking, going after a violent criminal. Do you have any idea how monumentally stupid that was?”

“Well,” retorted Tony, indignant, “It’s not as though I went looking for him on purpose.”

That seemed to take the wind out of Jakes’ sails somewhat.

“You didn’t?”

“Bixby asked me if I’d look in on Kay. I picked up a puncture close to the lake, and I’d got out to change the wheel when I heard a car coming.”

The sergeant slipped into the chair opposite, pulling out his notebook, and gave Tony an appraising look.

“What did you do?”

“Well, my car was more than half blocking the lane, so at first I thought to move it sharpish, but then it occurred to me that perhaps Conrad – that’s his name, Bixby’s twin, Conrad Greel – might have gone to Kay. I gather he had something of a _thing_ for her in their youth. So I waited.”

“And it was him?”

“Yes. He’d convinced Kay he was Bixby, and… Well, I could hardly let him just whisk her away, now could I?”

Sergeant Jakes raised an eyebrow as though to invite him to continue.

“I’m afraid one thing rather led to another, and I, er, ended up hitting him over the head.”

“I see.”

“With the wheel-brace,” Tony added, sheepish.

Sergeant Jakes seemed not to be quite sure how to react to that, and there was a brief, rather awkward silence.

“Well,” came the answer, at length, “I suppose I should thank you for that. But for God’s sake, don’t do it again.”

Tony grinned.

* * *

Morse peered through the small window in the cell door, and sucked in a sharp breath. Somehow, knowing that Bix had an identical twin was not quite the same thing as seeing it with his own eyes. Without even the pair of spectacles that had marked the difference between the two boys in the photograph, it would be so very easy to believe that the man in the cell was Bix: the curve of his lips was the same; the set of his shoulders as he sat resting his elbows on his knees. With the intention of taking his brother’s place, he’d adopted the same haircut, and the same few rebellious strands hung across his face.

And yet, it seemed this man could not be more different than the generous, strangely innocent soul that was Bix. Morse wondered at it.

It occurred to him that, Strange having been left to mind a somewhat distressed Kay Belborough, there would probably be tea upstairs in CID. Possibly even biscuits. And he might be able to talk Strange into taking his side in the inevitable argument with Inspector Thursday over whether Morse could be present when Conrad Greel was interviewed.

He walked away from the cell with purpose.

* * *

“I tell you what, Kay,” Tony said softly, “why don’t we see if Morse can persuade his nurse friend to let us drop in on Bixby for a few minutes?”

Morse gave Tony a stuffed-froggish look.

Tony raised his eyebrows meaningfully in return.

“He’s on a side ward,” Morse allowed, not entirely succeeding at masking his peevishness, “so we wouldn’t be disturbing any other patients. Monica might allow it.”

“There you are, then,” said Tony, grinning down at Kay with a confidence he did not entirely feel.

Kay smiled back at him, and didn’t seem terribly likely to start crying again; so Tony was willing to consider the matter a success.

There was a brief discussion regarding how to actually _get_ to Cowley General, given that Bluebell was currently stranded in the woods up by Lake Silence and it probably wasn’t entirely legal to take Bixby’s little red number. _Again_. Then Morse admitted – rather shyly, Tony thought – that Bixby had attempted to gift it to him a few days ago; so perhaps it was all right as long as he was the one driving.

Tony rather wanted to sit Pagan down and have a long talk about precisely what sort of motivations a man might have for just _giving_ another fellow a sports car of that calibre, but somehow it didn’t seem the right moment. He made a mental note.

So it was that Tony ended up standing awkwardly in a hospital corridor with Kay, trying not to look too obviously like he was attempting to eavesdrop on the whispered conversation that was being held between Morse and his nurse friend a little further along the hallway. From the amused smile playing at the corners of Kay’s mouth, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

“All right,” said Monica – yes, that was her name; Tony felt a veritable fool for forgetting – loudly enough for Tony and Kay to hear, “Five minutes.”

Morse gave her a quick peck on the cheek, and she rolled her eyes at him. Tony decided he liked her.

Bixby was asleep. He looked very young like that, Tony thought. Kay went and sat by his bedside. Morse stood somewhat stiffly at the foot of the bed. Tony closed the door behind himself as quietly as he could, but didn’t move any further into the room. He found himself watching the tableau before him – Kay looking every bit the concerned sweetheart, apparently plucking up the courage to lay her hand over Bixby’s; Pagan ever-so-still, as though he wasn’t really himself at all, but rather a cunning statue that somebody had substituted; and Bixby, loose-limbed in repose and breathing deep and even, though with the occasional slight rattle that said his lungs weren’t as clear as they might be.

* * *

“Absolutely not.”

“But Sir, I really –”

“No, Morse. You will not be present when Conrad Greel is interviewed, and that’s an end to it.”

Morse looked about to answer back; so Fred went on before he got the chance:

“Look, lad, you know as well as I do what the procedure is. I’d like you with me as much as you want to be there, but we’ll neither of us get what we want this time.”

If Morse did not seem entirely happy, he at least looked rather less angry. Fred was willing to consider that a success.

* * *

It was something of a relief to Peter that the remaining loose ends of the case were left to good old-fashioned police work. Once the connection had been provided – courtesy of Anthony Donn, who seemed generally more forthcoming than Morse – between The Great Zambezi and Janus Greel, it was comparatively simple to find evidence tying Conrad Greel to not only Bixby’s attempted murder, but also to the killings of Jeannie Hearn and poor Roddy Farthingale, whose body they had found in the boot of another of Bixby’s cars.

They hadn’t quite figured out who was heading the drugs racket that the whole sorry mess seemed to link back to, but it could only be a matter of time. Peter knew Inspector Thursday had his suspicions about Harry Rose. If he was right, it would be difficult to prove – Rose had always been a slippery bastard when it came to pinning anything on him.

Still, they had their killer, and they’d see justice done on that front, at least.

No, the only thing Peter was still genuinely concerned by was Morse. He hadn’t handed in his notice, but he hadn’t actually said anything about coming back, either. Peter found that he missed him, in an odd sort of way. He wouldn’t go so far as to say he _liked_ the bloke, but they’d been rubbing along well enough since – well, _since –_ and the station seemed oddly quiet without Morse’s acerbic witticisms, especially now that fewer of them tended to be aimed in Peter’s direction.

If things didn’t sort themselves out sharpish, Peter might have to do a spot of interfering. Nothing dramatic; nothing that could get back to Morse himself; but perhaps a quiet word with either Donn or Bixby. Just to be sure they were all on the same page.

* * *

Joss closed his eyes and took a deep breath, relishing the feeling of sunlight on his face. Finally, he was free. Well, he was still supposed to be on bed-rest, but he was allowed to go home, and that was a start.

A car horn sounded cheerfully, and he looked over to see the grinning figure of Morse’s friend Anthony waiting for him in that beloved blue convertible of his. Joss duly headed over to join him.

“It was very good of you to offer me a lift home,” he said, slipping into the passenger seat and settling his paper pharmacy bag of penicillin and morphine safely on his lap.

Anthony’s grin broadened.

“Not at all – it’s not as though it’s out of my way.”

The car purred merrily away as they wound their way out of Oxford, and the wind tugged pleasantly at Joss’s hair. For a time, there was a companionable silence, which afforded Joss with plenty of opportunity to think.

“How’s Kay?” he asked, realising that he hadn’t seen her since that night on the landing stage.

Tony gave him a queer look, then returned his eyes to the road.

“She and Bruce have gone away. Kenya. They’re trying to make a go of it, I think.”

It was almost physically painful to hear, but somehow still managed to be less awful than Joss had imagined it would feel. If Kay was happy; if her husband had realised that he needed to do better – _be_ better – he could live with her leaving. It would take some getting used to, but _he_ would make a go of it, too.

“Is there any news of Conrad?”

There was that queer look again, only amplified this time.

“There’s been some talk of a psychological evaluation. If he’s not considered to be in his right mind, they’d institutionalise him, rather than…” Anthony tailed off.

“Rather than hang him?” Joss surprised himself with the levelness of his voice.

“Yes,” said Tony awkwardly, “That.”

Joss took a steadying breath and let it out slowly.

“How’s Morse?”

That, at least, ought to be a safer topic.

“Has he not been to see you?” Anthony sounded surprised. How odd.

“Not for a few days, no.”

“Oh,” said Anthony, “I didn’t realise.”

That was… In honesty, no, it wasn’t reassuring, but there was some small measure of relief in knowing that it wasn’t _only_ him Morse had been avoiding; that he had, in all probability, not done anything to offend his friend.

Joss sighed.

“If you see him before I do, would you tell him I’ve missed his company?”

For a moment, Joss expected to be rebuffed. Then Anthony offered him an odd little smile.

“Of course I will.”

Just like that. It lifted a weight from Joss’s shoulders, and the quiet that fell between them once again was a comfortable one.

* * *

“Welcome home, Bix,” said Harry warmly, pulling the lad into a warm embrace the moment he’d got out of the car. It took barely a second before Bix had his arms around Harry, too, clinging tighter than was his wont. Harry squeezed him a little more firmly.

“You’ve lost weight, son.”

“Sorry,” Bix mumbled into Harry’s shoulder.

“You’re a good lad, Bix,” Harry replied softly, patting him gently on the back. “Come on, let’s get you settled, and I’ll pop the kettle on.”

Bix stepped back, and smiled; then turned away briefly.

“Thank you again, for the lift,” he called.

“Not at all,” replied the young man in the driver’s seat, “I’ll see you around.”

They waved to each other, and the young man drove away. Bix sagged a little, and Harry put a friendly arm around him to walk him through to the study, where he slumped into an armchair with little of his usual grace.

When Harry came back with tea, he poured a little scotch into Bix’s.

“You look like you could use it,” he said, when it looked as though Bix might protest.

“Thanks, Harry.”

Bix sipped at his tea, holding the cup in both hands as if to warm himself, though it was not a cold day.

It wasn’t long until Bix was nodding over his cup. Judging it to be at risk of being dropped, Harry extracted the vulnerable crockery from unprotesting fingers. Bix murmured something unintelligible, and his eyes slipped shut. Harry watched him for a moment, a fond smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and gently brushed a rogue lock of hair out of Bix’s face.

* * *

Morse stared around the empty shell of a half-basement flat. It was darker than his old place – the one he couldn’t bring himself to go back to – but a little more spacious. Good enough. With furniture, no doubt, it would look a little less desolate than it did at present.

The keys sat heavy in his pocket.

* * *

It registered, fuzzily, in Joss’s mind, that it had not been this dark when he had got home. He must have fallen asleep. He stretched, dislodging the blanket that someone – Harry – had draped over him, and was pleasantly surprised to find he hadn’t cricked his neck too badly. Falling asleep in armchairs really was a terrible habit to get into. He glanced across at the mantel clock. Half an hour until he was supposed to take his next batch of tablets. At least it had been a fairly well-timed nap, for all he hadn’t intended to take one.

Rubbing the sleep from his good eye, he got to his feet, and went in search of Harry.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the time, he found him in the kitchen. Cooking. Well, keeping half an eye on a pot of what smelled like some sort of casserole, at least. Whether Harry had actually put it together himself was questionable; but then Joss hadn’t seen any of his staff since getting home, so perhaps… Either way, he found he was hungry enough not to want to question it.

“Hullo, Harry,” he said, by way of announcing his presence.

“Bix,” said Harry, “Have a good nap?”

“Yes. I’m sorry for conking out on you.”

Harry waved away his apology.

“Don’t be silly, Bix. You looked like you needed it. Can’t expect to be on fighting form the day you get out of hospital.”

Well, when Harry put it like that… Joss grinned at him.

“Something smells tasty.”

“I can’t take the credit for it – I’ve only been watching it since your cook went home for the night. Sit yourself down, and I’ll find bowls.”

They sat together at the kitchen table to eat, not really conversing, but not entirely silent, either. A companionable quietude, interspersed with occasional comments – on the food; on Joss’s health; on what Harry had been up to since he’d last visited. It felt _familial_ , in a way that Joss’s real family never truly had, and he knew that he couldn’t give it up, even if Morse disapproved.

If Morse came back to disapprove.

Suddenly, Joss didn’t feel like eating anymore.

“Bix?” Harry asked.

“Hm?” Joss replied, vaguely.

“Are you feeling all right?”

Joss did his best to smile, but from the worried look on Harry’s face, he wasn’t terribly successful.

“I’m fine, Harry.”

If anything, Harry looked more concerned at that.

“Really. I’m just a little tired. I think I might turn in, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” said Harry, “I’ll be just across the landing, if you need me.”

Joss got up from the table, and went to clear his dishes, but Harry shooed him away.

“Leave that to me. Go on with you – off to bed. Sleep well.”

“Thanks, Harry. G’night.”

“Night, Bix.”

The stairs took more out of Joss than he’d expected, and by the time he reached his bedroom, he was genuinely glad to shuck his clothes and slip between the sheets. Out of habit, he picked up his book – Harry must have returned it to his bedside table when he was napping downstairs – but he’d barely got through a page when sleep claimed him.

* * *

Tony scowled at the telephone, not especially pleased to realise that he wasn’t sure if Morse hadn’t picked up because he was out, or because he wasn’t actually staying at the flat. Given his reluctance to go back there on his release, Tony wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that aversion had led him into finding somewhere else. Given his job – provided, of course, he hadn’t up and left the police for good – it was fairly safe to assume Morse would _have_ a telephone, if he’d moved, but that didn’t help Tony to divine the number.

He could always leave a message at the station. It wouldn’t be ideal, but it would be better than nothing.

He picked up the receiver and put his finger to the dial; then paused and set the receiver back in its cradle. The conversation would keep, at least until tomorrow.

* * *

Cautiously, Harry tapped twice, feather-light, on Bix’s door. No answer. He eased the door open, and smiled to see the lad sprawled out on his back, with an open book balanced somewhat precariously on his chest. He crossed the room on near-silent feet to rescue it, before Bix had chance to roll over on top of it in his sleep.

There wasn’t much of a chill in the air, but somehow it seemed only right to ease the blankets carefully up over Bix’s exposed shoulders before retreating back to the doorway.

“Sweet dreams, Bix,” Harry murmured, turning out the light. He closed the door softly behind him, and crossed the landing to his usual guest room.

* * *

Morse woke to sunlight streaming through the threadbare curtains and someone pounding on his front door. Combined with a slight hangover from last night’s whisky, it really wasn’t the best way to start the day. He scowled fiercely in the direction of the noise.

“Just a minute!” he called, not caring that he sounded very nearly as irritated as he felt, and wrestled his way into his dressing gown.

Opening the door, he realised that Anthony was somehow simultaneously entirely who he’d expected and the last person he’d imagined would be hammering on his door at – he checked the watch he hadn’t taken off the night before – half ten in the morning. Oh.

“I, uh, suppose you’d best come in,” he offered, awkwardly.

“Your Nurse Hicks gave me the address. I hope you don’t mind.”

When Anthony had that shy, worried look on his face, it was very hard to mind _anything_ he did, and Morse suspected the bastard knew it. He gave a non-committal shrug, and Anthony seemed to relax slightly.

For a short while, there was a familiar sort of companionable silence between them.

“Bixby’s out of hospital,” said Anthony, apparently apropos of nothing in particular.

Morse’s heart did a strange little flip behind his ribs. He said nothing.

“He told me he hasn’t seen you recently,” Anthony went on, “and I thought that was a little strange. Has something happened? Between you?”

Morse blinked, surprised.

“No.”

There was a brief, thoughtful silence, then –

“I know you’ve never been the most…socially aware of people, but if you’ll excuse my asking, what exactly do you think you’re playing at?”

Anthony’s tone had a sharp edge to it that Morse could only recall hearing very infrequently in the past. Anthony was _upset_ about something. It didn’t make sense.

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Morse, because he didn’t.

Anthony stared at him.

“He’s your _friend_ , isn’t he?”

“Of course he is. I still don’t see –”

“You know, Pagan, considering how much more intelligent you are than the rest of us mere mortals, you can be unbelievably stupid sometimes.”

Morse blinked some more.

“I’m sorry?” he offered, and it came out a question, which he hadn’t quite intended.

Anthony pinched the bridge of his nose and took a very deep breath indeed. A part of Morse felt rather ashamed that he was obviously exasperating his friend, but it was mostly overwhelmed by indignation. If Anthony would just come out and _tell_ him what the problem was…

Apparently, Anthony read that thought on his face.

“Pagan, Bixby _cares_ about you. Your staying away for no reason is worrying him.”

“But surely Kay has –”

“Kay’s gone to Kenya on a second honeymoon to try and salvage her marriage.”

“Oh,” said Morse, taken aback.

“Bixby asked me to tell you he misses you,” Anthony offered softly.

Morse stared at Anthony, wide-eyed and utterly unsure what to say. A silence hung between them.

“Um,” Morse managed, eventually, “Perhaps this afternoon, I could…” He trailed off.

Anthony bestowed that bright, warm smile of his on him.

“I’ll drive you over, if you like. Soon as you’ve made yourself presentable.”

“Thanks,” said Morse, with an awkward little twitch of his lips that had been supposed to be a smile.

Anthony beamed.

* * *

In the end, Tony had probably had more say in Morse’s outfit than Morse himself – it would have taken them at least an hour longer to leave otherwise. And, if Tony did say so – _silently_ – himself, Morse looked rather good. It was probably the unusual degree of tidiness that did it: for once, he actually looked as though he’d combed his hair.

Morse was quiet, staring aimlessly out at the trees as they neared the lake, with a slightly pinched look on his face. Worrying about something, no doubt.

That was the thing about Pagan – he so often seemed just a fraction uncomfortable in his own skin; never quite sure that he was good enough. Well, unless you got into an argument with him, at which point he would cling to his guns with stubborn conviction until you surrendered. It was reassuring to know he hadn’t changed.

* * *

Honestly, if he hadn’t been only a few steps away from the door when the bell rang, Joss would have let Harry get it. Despite his early night, he was damnably tired. But he _was_ only a few steps from the door, so he opened it. There on his doorstep, wearing a slightly sheepish smile, was Morse. Joss felt an answering smile spread across his face; wide enough to prompt a twinge of pain from under the gauze-and-sticking-plaster dressing that still covered the upper part of the left side of his face. He smiled wider.

“Hello, old man,” he said warmly, before directing a nod at Anthony, whom he’d just spotted hovering a little way back, “Anthony. It’s good to see you both – come in.”

If Joss’s arm draped around Morse’s shoulder was as much supporting his weight as it was guiding his friend towards the snug, neither of them mentioned it.

In the end, Joss and Morse settled next to each other on the Chesterfield, while Anthony occupied the wing-back opposite. Joss made an attempt to offer his guests a drink, but they waved him off. Possibly to save him getting up again – Anthony, at least, was watching him with a slightly worried look in his eye.

Joss had a sneaking suspicion that this was what family was _supposed_ to feel like.

“It’s been too long,” he said, more to himself than to either of his friends.

Morse made a soft, apologetic little sound in his throat.

“I hadn’t realised Kay wasn’t…”

_Ah._ Well, that explained the avoidance in some ways, at least.

“ _She would not stay for me; and who can wonder?_ ”

The words passed Joss’s lips before he could stop them, and he chose to imagine the strained look that crossed Morse’s face was at his deliberate misquotation, rather than the rawness of his voice.

Admittedly, that would not explain away Anthony’s silent wince.

“You’re here now,” Joss offered, which was what he’d _meant_ to say in the first place. If his smile was slightly less bright than he’d hoped, neither of his companions commented.

* * *

It was, Tony mused, a little odd to be the third man in a room with Morse and Bixby. If Pagan had ever been so unguarded with anyone in Tony’s presence before, he couldn’t remember it. Which probably didn’t say very much for either the state of his own friendship with Morse, or Morse’s relationships with human beings in general.

Well, come to think of it, Pagan had always been pretty sappy about his sister – _half-_ sister – what was her name? Joycie? No, that was only for Pagan. Joyce. Tony had never actually met Joyce Morse, though, and there was a difference between Pagan being fond over the telephone and Pagan being fond in person.

“You’re sure I can’t tempt you to reconsider that job offer?” Bixby asked Morse, half-teasingly.

Morse smiled.

“I’m going back to policing. Next week, actually – I spoke to Mister Bright the other day.”

It was the first Tony had heard of it.

“Even after –?”

“Yes,” said Morse firmly, and Tony was quite prepared to let that be an end to it, only –

“You know, old man,” Bixby said, turning a rather intense gaze on Morse, though his tone was light, “I don’t think you ever did tell me that story.”

Morse blinked, looking momentarily rather bemused.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it. The files are sealed.”

“Ah,” said Bixby, apparently willing to leave off.

“I was set up,” Morse mumbled, eyes fixed firmly on the floor, “and they put me away for it.”

The expression that dawned on Bixby’s face – a sort of alarmed sympathy – was not one Tony liked, but he expected he’d looked much the same when Morse had called him to ask for a lift from the prison on his release. Only, Tony had heard the truncated story over the phone, so _he_ hadn’t been able to put his hand on Morse’s knee in silent solidarity.

Even if he had, he doubted Morse would have leaned into it like that.

Not that he had any right to be jealous. Tony might have been Pagan’s friend first, but Bixby was a decent bloke, and Morse liked him. That was perfectly fair. Possibly not entirely comfortable, but fair.

“Well, keep in touch this time, won’t you?” Tony asked.

Morse quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Need I remind you that we’d hardly spoken in at least a year before –” Tony gestured vaguely with one hand “– all this happened?”

Morse had the grace to look slightly abashed.

“I didn’t mean to ignore you,” he said softly.

“I know,” Tony replied. “But if it happens again, I might start to wonder…”

There was a flare of amusement in Morse’s eyes – he had definitely caught the teasing tone.

“Well, then,” he said, with a wry little smirk, “I suppose I ought to take this opportunity to invite the pair of you to dinner. Next Thursday at seven?”

* * *

There was a part of Harry that rather wanted to disapprove of Bixby choosing a _policeman_ , of all people, as his closest friend, but it was hard to do so when Bix looked so damnably happy to have spent time with him. Morse and Donn had left – it was just Harry and Bix again – but the beaming smile hadn’t gone with them.

Apparently, Bix was going to dinner at Morse’s next week. Donn was driving him over. It wasn’t entirely what Harry had meant, when he’d wished to see Bix settle down. Still, he made a mental note to pass the word out amongst the lads at the next opportunity: Morse was off-limits, as of now. No exceptions; no excuses. Anyone laid a finger on that boy, and they wouldn’t like what was coming to them.

* * *

“You know,” said Tony, as they reached the door of Morse’s flat, “if you need any help with moving in, you only have to ask.”

The look Morse gave him was almost slightly suspicious, at first, but then his brow softened and a sliver of a smile twitched across his mouth.

“Thanks. I might just take you up on that.”

Tony couldn’t see his own answering smile, but from the way it made his cheeks hurt, he suspected it was rather ridiculous. Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Bix misquotes is by A E Housman, and it's supposed to go like this:
> 
> He would not stay for me; and who can wonder?  
> He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.  
> I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder  
> And went with half my life about my ways.

**Author's Note:**

> My aim is to write a chapter a month. I'm sorry if that's a bit slow, but unfortunately real life tends to get in the way now that I have a full-time job.


End file.
